to attend him. When Amurat died, all the great officers went into his prison to tell him that he was now Sultan; they came in time, for none but the negress ever entered his apartment. She had died in the room and her corpse was putrifying there. He suspected it was a trick of Amurat's to take away his life; and, clinging to a miserable existence, lifted up his hands and prayed Allah to preserve the Sultan, his brother, for the prosperity and glory of the Ottoman empire. He would not venture over the threshold of his prison till he saw his brother's body, and even then, afraid of the very corpse of one who had kept him so many years intombed alive, felt with his hands if he were really dead; and not yet satisfied with feeling him cold and stiff, knelt down and put his mouth to the dead mouth to try whether it breathed.
